What You See is What You Eat.

I generally do not like mushrooms or truffles. For those who, for whatever reasons previously discussed, think I’m vegetarian and/or vegan, this is a Big Deal, because, along with garlic, mushrooms are supposed to be a vegetarian staple. (Aside: my neighbor is vegetarian and hates garlic. So weird.).

The only times in recent memory where I did actually like a mushroom dish was once at Il Pastaio and another time at Craft. The first, at Il Pastaio, had black truffles in this pasta dish that I don’t remember too well, only that they didn’t taste like fungi, tasted just like tofu masquerading as sausage, in the best way possible. The second time was at Craft, where I was lucky enough to go to, thanks to my mentor convincing the CFO that it was worth it. He was a vegetarian, so of course ordered a side of assorted mushrooms. Those mushrooms also didn’t taste like mushrooms; tasted like delicate candy flowers. They were delicious. I almost couldn’t believe they were mushrooms.

Fall brings a number of things to us, like apples and pumpkins. To certain foodies with monies, it means white truffles. It means certain peoples in my office somehow have white truffles shipped to them the second they were forested from the Italian plains of Alba. It means those certain peoples come into my office offering me a smell and possibly, a taste.

This caused a little bit of an ethical dilemma. You see, white truffles are outrageously expensive. Outrageously. Even Costco, America’s ode to bulk, sells them for the price of a large television – 2 ounces for $550 (but you get a free truffle slicer!!). A Hong Kong man bought 1.5 pounds of the stuff for $330,000 last year. Providence estimates that these shrooms cost $2,000 – 2,500 per pound, depending on the season. They, and other fancified fancy restaurants across town like La Cachette and La Botte, probably will soon offer white truffle dishes for upwards of $[very expensive].

And the privileged take these things seriously — recall this extensive Chowhound uproar on the mystery of the suspiciously early appearance of the white truffle at Craft.

So, who am I, one who doesn’t like nor appreciate the mushroom family, to take a taste? Well, given that just a tiny lick of this stuff probably is itself worth at least $100, I would be a fool not to. And so I did.

And? It smelled wonderful, like the way clean dirt would smell after a proper rain. Taste-wise, it was good, very mushroomy, very meaty, very dirt-y (as in, earth-y). Not earthshattering, however. Didn’t change my life for the better, like the first time I had an honest-to-God-fresh-from-the-hen’s-butt farm fresh egg. Didn’t change my life for the worse, like the time I went to Crustacean. I continue to dislike mushrooms.

These things are supposed to taste simply di-vine simply shaved raw atop of eggs, pasta, anything. Maybe if I had its flavors permeate throughout a dish, I would have thought more spectactularly of it. As it is, though, I would pass and save my hundreds of dollars on more plebian pleasures, like eggs without shaved white truffles.

More interesting to me is how these things are harvested.